Off the Deep End (60)
Besides all the investigators and technicians working the case, it was only my parents and my best friend who’d been inside yet. The individuals handling the case had become like new fixtures in our house, but I’d been acutely aware of their presence ever since I came downstairs. Everyone gave me weird hellos and shifty eye contact like I’d stumbled in on them talking about me, and one of my favorite technicians, Stan, wasn’t even pretending like he wasn’t studying my and Katie’s interaction as it played out in front of him.
Katie nodded. “Her mom said she’s fine with it. She even said she could stay overnight. Would that be okay?”
“You want to have a sleepover, Katie? Now?”
“It’s not like it’s just anyone, Mom. It’s Paloma. She’s practically family.” She shrugged. “Besides, I thought it might be nice to try sleeping in my own bed tonight, and she can sleep with me. It would give you and Dad a break.”
Had she heard Mark crying last night too? Had she been lying there pretending to sleep just like me while she listened? She could’ve been. It was totally possible. For a second, nothing felt real. Like I was standing outside myself watching. It was incredibly disorienting, and I forced myself to say something to Katie. “If it will make you feel better to have her here, then go ahead.”
She kissed me on the cheek. “Thanks, Mom. I’m going to go tell her upstairs.”
She bounced off, and for just that split second, things felt normal again. I was back inside my body. And then Detective Hawkins stepped through the front door, reminding me how far from normal things were. I couldn’t take this roller coaster much longer. How did people live through this?
“Morning, everybody,” Detective Hawkins called out to no one and everyone at the same time as he wiped his boots on the mat in front of the door. He was in the same collared shirt he’d worn last night, which meant he probably hadn’t slept, either, except he looked much better than I did. I hadn’t looked in a mirror this morning, but I knew I looked terrible. I hadn’t even bothered to brush my teeth. Detective Hawkins caught my eye. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I slept all right,” I lied. There was no point in telling the truth.
“How about you, Mark?” he called out to him in the living room.
Mark gave him the thumbs-up sign, lying right along with me. He’d only slept for a few hours before waking up and getting out of bed again. I hadn’t followed him downstairs that time. I almost wished I hadn’t the first time.
Detective Hawkins had barely stepped through the entryway when his phone buzzed. His eyes lit up when he saw the name. He quickly brought the phone up to his ear.
“Marilyn?” He nodded in quick successive jerks, immediately focused and at attention. He motioned to everyone that he was stepping outside, then abruptly turned and headed out, shutting the door tightly behind him.
Marilyn was his big boss. The one from Washington. She rarely called. Only when it was really important. My heart sped up, and my mouth went instantly dry. I couldn’t swallow. I felt Mark’s eyes on me from across the room, but I couldn’t bring myself to return his stare.
I paced the kitchen, nervously waiting for Detective Hawkins to finish and let us know what was going on. Usually when I got this worked up, someone would crack a joke or tell me a story to distract me, but there was an icy temperature in the room. A level of uncomfortableness that had never been there before despite how awkward it had been when they first set up camp in my kitchen. Whatever weirdness was going on with Detective Hawkins, it’d trickled down to them.
The minutes dragged. Would Detective Hawkins let us stay or banish us to another side of the house? That’s what he’d done the first day. He said my emotions were too big of a distraction in the kitchen. When he finally opened the door and I saw the look on his face, all the blood drained from my body. I brought both hands to my mouth. The floor rose up to meet me.
This couldn’t be happening.
Run.
I wanted to whip open the door and take off sprinting as fast as I could through the neighborhood. If he couldn’t say the words, then they couldn’t be true. It never happened.
But I was frozen to my spot. Numb. Nothing would move even if I wanted it to. I flung a terrified glance in Mark’s direction. His eyes matched my terror.
Please, God.
Detective Hawkins motioned to Mark. “Why don’t you come join us in the kitchen? We need to have a team meeting in the kitchen.”
Mark hurried to stand next to me. He leaned against the counter for support, and I leaned against him for the same.
“Okay, everyone, listen up,” Detective Hawkins called out, sliding his phone into the back pocket of his pants.
Everything stopped and stilled in the middle of what they were doing like it was a game of tag and someone had just yelled freeze. For a second, Detective Hawkins’s eyes met ours, and he gave us a brief nod, our official signal that it was okay to stay.
“We’ve had an interesting development in the case,” he said as if we didn’t already know something big was happening. He’d never called everyone to a halt and together in a big group like this. At least not when we were there. His eyes scanned the room, making a point to briefly connect with everyone before he continued speaking. “Billy and his mother just left the station after speaking with one of our officers about the case. Turns out, Billy was never grabbed by the Dog Snatcher.” I gasped out loud, but nobody else made a sound. They were seasoned professionals in this business of twists and turns. Mark’s entire body stiffened next to mine. Mine flooded with relief. “Billy made it all up. None of it happened. He was never grabbed. There was never a bald man with a cute dog. He created all the details.”